The population of wild snow leopards is very limited in our world where they suffer from an important pressure. But these animals living in high altitude valleys tend to be very difficult to observe and they may not be observed for long times when they live in isolated places.
This more or less the story of a discovery in Afghanistan: The valleys of the Wakhan Corridor, in the Eastern part of the country, not very far from Pakistan and Tajikistan, host a small group of these magnificent big cats.
The Wildlife Conservation Society organized the installation of photography traps in this area and succeeded in confirming the existence of a snow leopard group in this inaccessible mountainous region. But they do not dare give numbers yet.
Fortunately, I am referring to a photo-video trap, not hunters’ traps.
The critically endangered Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) has been well observed by the WWF-financed counting operation in Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve and Leopardoviy Federal Wildlife Refuge (Russia). This is very good news since the species is believed to count only about 50 animals in the wild. But the Russian traps appear to have allowed the observation of nothing less than 12 different individuals (instead of the 6 that were believed to live in the area).
Maybe the Amur leopard population is (very slowly) increasing.
The video shows a female and a grown-up cub, which may be a farily good indication that the reproduction may allow a slow recovery in this very small population of Amur leopards.
When you set a camera up to watch lion behaviour, you should be prepared for some wild uses of it. Here is what happened in Tswalu Kalahari Game Reserve
The Smithsonian, which is in United States of America the largest museum and scientific institution since 1846, recently published on-line a large collection of animal pictures taken by automatic cameras. They reveal a few unknown aspects of the animal behavior (when Man is not there to peep).
To support its own promotion, the Snow Leopard Conservation Fund freely shares tow of its nicest photo pictures of snow leopards. Notice that -for once- these are photos of free wild animals and they were not shot in zoos. Snow leopards are defintely having a hard time in the wild and its survival is defintely not certain.
This Canadian artist works on painted pictures whose realism is striking (most people often think they are photographs, at first) and it is quite pleasing to see the very natural and touching attitudes of most of the painted animals. See some of his big cats.
Iain MacArthur is an English artist drawing amazing animal sketches (see his web site). To attract you to it, I present here a only one hand-drawn sketch of a big cat:
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Fortunately, I am referring to a photo-video trap, not hunters’ traps. 
